The Vaportini

I came across a really fascinating article on NPR's "the Salt" today. Basically, it discusses how a bar in Chicago called Red Kiva has started to serve drinks in "a simple device that evaporates flavor-infused spirits, so you can breathe in the aromas and alcohol through a glass straw."


I don't know about you but this sounds extremely intriguing and perhaps extremely dangerous. The device looks something like this:

  According to restaurateur Julie Palmer, she "experimented with a variety of designs for the Vaportini, but in the end, the simplest worked the best: a hand-blown glass globe with a candle underneath it." This sounds really cool and if anything like this came to a bar near me, I think I would have to check it out.

Cleaning a Coffee Maker

I love thrifting. Actually, I like to consider myself a pioneer in the field since I have been checking out thrift stores before it was a popular thing to do –and definitely long before Macklamore made it a mainstream activity.  

Regardless, I was at the local Goodwill the other day and came across one of the best finds EVER: an espresso maker. I love coffee and I love espresso even more so I knew that I couldn’t pass up the chance to own one -especially with a price tag of $3.99. 

      My exact model

I brought the machine home and tested it out to see if it ran. It did. But then came the arduous task of cleaning the thing. I remember once that I put soap in an old coffee make I had and needless to say, the thing was done in. I never was fully able to wash out the soap so I had to throw it away. Because of this past experience I needed to find a way in which I could safely and efficiently clean it without ruining it.

What I came about during my musing on the internet was talk about using vinegar to disinfect and clean it. Eventually I settled on a combination of my own calculations and it ended up working quite well.

The recipe is as follows:

1.      50% water, 50% vinegar ran through the machine 2-3 times.

2.      Once it has gone through, run clean water 4-6 times (more if desired).

3.      Voila –clean!

It seems so simple because it is. But regardless of the simplicity, the espresso maker was clean and I have been using it ever since.

Cedar Rapids Casino

If you live in the Cedar Rapids community you may have heard about the new casino that is being proposed. At first I was totally in favor of it. I like to gamble, there are undoubtedly hundreds if not thousands of people who like to gamble so why not? But the more I looked into it, the more that the facts started to disturb me -on multiple fronts.

The people who want to build the casino claim that it will help boost the local economy by bringing tourism, conventions, etc. But the people who don't want the casino, according to their website, claim three things:  no specifics, wasteful spending, and not real economic development. On the surface this seems like a legit complaint. However, as I dove into it I discovered that the opposition to the casino is backed by pre-existing casinos such as Riverside and Isle of Capri in Waterloo. 

This just seems like another typical case of political manipulation and special interest groups trying to one up the people. But then again this is only my opinion.